August Openings Put Schools On Hot Seat

It may not have the same ring as "See You in September," but more
and more school districts are telling students to make sure they're
back in August for the first day of school—sometimes as early as
the first week of the month.

A recent national survey of public schools by a Connecticut company
that tracks school trends found that while 51 percent of public schools
had opened before Sept. 1 in 1988, that figure had leaped to 76 percent
by last year, with the biggest gain in the early 1990s.

"The trend was a pretty dramatic shift," said Kathleen Brantley, the
director of product development for Market Data Retrieval of Shelton,
Conn., which collected the data on school calendars.

Some of the change comes from the gradual growth of so-called year-
round schools, which typically feature a shortened summer break and a
late July or early August start. But schools striving to reinvent the
academic calendar have been far from alone in embracing earlier
starting dates. And like most changes in the educational landscape, the
trend has made some people very unhappy.

Texas parents and tourism-industry officials complained so hard
about early start dates, for example, that the legislature this spring
passed a law that effectively prohibits districts from opening their
doors before the third week in August without a state waiver. And in
Virginia Beach, Va., teachers and business leaders helped sink a state
waiver that would have allowed a pre-Labor Day start for local
schools.

Devising a school calendar is typically an intensely local
undertaking. Officials and calendar committees in one community often
take into account factors that do not exist or play very differently in
another.

"There are few issues that seem to generate more aggravation,
interest, and emotion than school calendars," said Mitchell A.
Strohman, the spokesman for the 11,800-student Flagstaff, Ariz., public
schools.

Flagstaff experimented with a mid-August start several years ago,
but returned to a late-August one this year.

"No matter what calendar we pick, there will be a segment of the
local community that will experience heartburn over it," Mr. Strohman
said.

But state and regional influences also affect school calendars. Peg
Smith, the executive director of the Martinsville, Ind.-based American
Camping Association, noted that in New York state, for instance, school
openings are mostly after Labor Day. On the other hand, mid- August
starts are common in the the South-Central states, such as Texas and
Oklahoma. The group keeps informal track of school openings because
they are important to summer-camp schedules.

Reasons Vary

Interviews with administrators around the country pointed to a few
common considerations on the part of districts that have moved to
earlier start dates.

One is the desire to get exams in high school out of the way before
the December break. Another is the freedom to change that comes with
air conditioning.

Alvin L. Ginsberg, an administrator for the Oklahoma City schools,
said the 39,000- student district was able to accommodate the request
for exams before the winter break by switching from a late-August start
to a mid-August one a few years ago when the schools got air
conditioning.

"There were big pleas from teachers and students and parents," he
said. "By the time kids take 10 days off, there's an opportunity for
forgetting things."

Meanwhile, other districts in the area were making the same calendar
change, which served as a further incentive. "If we don't let our kids
out when they do, the summer jobs get taken," Mr. Ginsberg said.

Several Florida districts recently moved up opening day from late
August to the middle of the month. Many observers link the move to
Florida's high-stakes tests, a factor echoed elsewhere.

"We all want to be in school about the same amount of time before we
take the tests" in February and March, said Lori Hartwig Yusko, the
spokeswoman for the 48,000- student Pasco County schools north of
Tampa. At least two nearby districts have also moved up their start
dates by two weeks. In Florida, the tests are used to rate schools and
determine high school graduation.

Still, Ms. Yusko said, the clamor to end the marking period before
winter break played a larger role in the decision.

All of these factors unfold in a larger context of social and
cultural change. The agricultural harvest long ago lost its grip on the
nation's psyche as well as its economy, and weeks at the lake may no
longer have the same appeal, even for families that can afford such
leisure. August is fair game for the calendar in a way it once was
not.

Part of the change, said Douglas W. Busman, the superintendent of
the 3,100-student Caledonia district in the suburbs of Grand Rapids,
Mich., reflects the nature and pace of family life.

"The notion of a long summer vacation as a family is more the
exception now," Mr. Busman said. The upshot is that shorter
breaks—whether in the summer or at other times of the year, such
as Thanksgiving—may better suit families.

After having closed on June 6, Mr. Busman's schools will reopen Aug.
22—except for an elementary school that opened three years ago
with a year- round or—as its advocates prefer—a "balanced"
calendar. That school starts Aug. 7.

Another consideration is that Mr. Busman and his fellow Michigan
superintendents have had to adjust to a state law that required schools
to gradually add a total of 108 hours for instruction to the school
year between 1996 and 1999.

"To try to get the number of hours into the calendar, [and] build in
some snow days, it's really starting to push into August," Mr. Busman
said.

Making Enemies

District leaders who try to start school earlier can face a torrent
of criticism. That was the case in the East Coast resort city of
Virginia Beach last spring.

Officials of the city's 77,500- student district went to the state
for a waiver to open school before Labor Day, saying they wanted to add
four days at the start of the school year to help assess where students
stood academically. The result, they said, would be better student
performance on Virginia's high-stakes tests.

The state school board approved the waiver on a 4-3 vote. Virginia
is one of just five states that regulate school openings, and the one
that requires the latest opening— after Labor Day.

But passionate local protest led by the teachers' union and
shoreline tourism businesses prompted the Virginia Beach school board
to backtrack on its earlier support for the change.

Instead of 185 days and a pre-Labor Day start for this coming school
year, the board approved a 183-day academic calendar that starts the
day after Labor Day. The two extra days will likely be canceled
holidays. The board said it might support an earlier opening for the
2002-03 school year.

"I'm hoping the board will embrace an earlier start time," said
Timothy J. Jenney, the superintendent of the Virginia Beach schools.
"I'm hoping that calmer heads will prevail."

Some of the same issues that entangled the Virginia Beach plan
surfaced in Texas during the fight over state Sen. Eddie J. Lucio Jr.'s
proposal to regulate school starting dates. A compromise bill that
passed the legislature this year prohibits Texas schools from starting
earlier than the week that includes Aug. 21.

Sen. Lucio, a Democrat, said the issue was first brought to his
attention six years ago by tourist-industry groups, which argued that
the earlier dates deprived them of family patronage and the labor of
teenagers. Now, he is convinced that most Texans don't want school to
start until after Labor Day.

"Some of their kids have to work summer jobs," he said. "And it's
way too hot in the early part of August to be riding a school bus or
participating in athletics."

Most recently, Mr. Lucio said, his major concern has been the
state's 200,000 migrant workers. "They are the ones being hurt the
most," he said, because their parents often have to chose between
making money and getting their children to school. Many opt for the
extra work, helping to drive first-week absences into the hundreds of
thousands, according to Mr. Lucio.

He and others credited much of the bill's success to a group called
Texans for a Traditional School Year, which claims 14,000 members and
was formed to support the effort. Yet the limits imposed by the
legislature remain controversial, with some districts poised to retain
their early-August starts by going to the state for waivers, as the
legislation allows. The bill does not take effect until the 2002-03
school year.

Bye-Bye to Break?

Few districts start earlier than Allen, a suburb of Dallas that
opens this year on Aug. 6 and closes May 23. Tim Carroll, the
district's spokesman, traces the early start to a decade ago, when
Allen schools were on a year-round calendar. The 9,400- student
district has since abandoned that schedule, but it has kept its two
weeklong breaks in the fall, which proved popular. Mr. Carroll said
district officials have yet to decide whether to seek a waiver.

Merrolee R. Dill, the parent of a 2nd and an 8th grader in district
schools, favors the current calendar. "I believe that three months of
summer break is too long, and our children begin to get bored, forget
things that have learned the previous school year, and frankly, it is
just too darned hot be outside playing," she wrote in an e-mail urging
friends to be heard on Sen. Lucio's bill.

Growing up in Wichita Falls, Texas, Ms. Dill started school after
Labor Day and had no fall breaks other than a short one at
Thanksgiving, she recalls. The schools were not air-conditioned.

"Prisoners of
Time," a 1994 report of the from the National Education Commission
on Time and Learning, asserts that "Our schools and the people involved
with them...are prisoners of time, captives of the school clock and
calendar....The reform movement of the last decade is destined to
founder unless it is harnessed to more time for learning."

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